


because it's you (and me)

by leeminhyoongi



Category: Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, other members are mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-13
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-01 19:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12711249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leeminhyoongi/pseuds/leeminhyoongi
Summary: Woojin hates seeing Jihoon get hurt because of him, but Jihoon doesn't mind.





	because it's you (and me)

**Author's Note:**

> I have so little progress with the rest of my WIPs, but wanted something out to commemorate To Be One and to celebrate Nothing Without You, so here we are!
> 
> Thank you to my best friend, [Jordan](http://archiveofourown.org/users/euigeon/pseuds/euigeon), for beta-ing (read her Jinhwi fic too!). I love you!

The chilly November air hits Woojin’s bare back like a fucking bitch. It adds a million pins and needles to the tens of bruises and wounds decorating his back, as if they don’t hurt him enough on their own already. He hisses in discomfort and keeps his sweater halfway on, holding it closer to his chest in an effort to keep him warm at least.

“Take it off, Woojin,” Jihoon orders. His voice is soft and quiet, doesn’t sound a bit demanding at all, but Woojin knows there’s no room for him to joke around or disobey now.

“It’s cold,” Woojin argues. He slips his arms out of the sleeves anyway, though he still keeps his sweater pressed against his chest.

“That’s why you should take your sweater off entirely so I can clean you up faster, don’t you think?” Jihoon retorts, a light bite to his words. He presses a gauze damp with an antiseptic solution onto a particularly deep wound by Woojin’s left shoulder, making Woojin hiss again.

“Fuck, you’re _enjoying_ this, aren’t you?” Woojin snaps. He bites his lip almost immediately afterwards though, because he realizes he shouldn’t have joked – shouldn’t have said anything at all – especially not tonight. He turns his head a bit to be able to see Jihoon from where he’s standing behind Woojin, but is stopped by the flat surface of Jihoon’s fist against his jaw. It wasn’t a punch of any sort, but it surprises Woojin anyway. The back of Jihoon’s hands are cold and calloused, and Woojin doesn’t recall them ever being anything but warm and soft.

Woojin doesn’t turn his head any further, but keeps it as it is even after Jihoon’s dropped his hand. From his peripheral vision, Woojin watches as Jihoon reaches for a gauze from where an old pack has been haphazardly thrown on his bathroom sink, and dips it into the antiseptic solution he poured into his toothbrush glass. The only time Woojin stops looking at Jihoon is when he closes his eyes in pain as excess antiseptic solution drips into other open wounds scattered all over his back.

Jihoon’s moving carefully and cautiously that it makes Woojin wonder just how bad the state of his back is if even the slightest move of Jihoon’s smallest finger is enough to make Woojin wince. While he’s chewing on his bottom lip in hopes that the act will be able to suppress the groans threatening to escape his mouth, Woojin recalls what happened earlier that night, and every fiber of his being ends up worrying about _Jihoon_ instead.

“Okay, you can turn around now.”

Woojin’s steps are slow, and when he’s finally made a turn, he contemplates on whether or not his sharp intake of breath is because of the discomfort taking over his body or because of the state of Jihoon’s own frame.

Woojin has always preferred white light – yellow light distorts images, ruins Jihoon’s features (but Woojin would always still think he’s the most beautiful thing to grace the face of the Earth) – but he thinks he despises the way it shines brightly over the entirety of Jihoon tonight. This way, Woojin can’t miss any of the bruises and cuts and gashes and wounds peppering Jihoon’s figure. He hasn’t even undressed yet, making Woojin knees go weak in a totally different way than he’d like.

Jihoon pulls at Woojin’s sweater, and Woojin is too angry, too sorry, too tired, too worried to put up a fight. His arms are heavy from all of the blocking and the punching he did earlier, that he mentally curses at them for being too weak to just grab Jihoon and hold him close instead of just limply hanging at his sides.

A deep purple bruise sits right at the center of Woojin’s chest, and both of their faces twist in pain at the mere sight of it. It’s red and violet – both of them paid enough attention to that one lecture in Biology to know that those two colors aren’t very good signs when it came to bruises. Jihoon drenches a gauze in cold water and lightly sets it over the discoloration. The temporary relief it brings emits a sigh from Woojin, and the corners of Jihoon’s lips rise a bit to form a small smile.

There are less open wounds on the front of Woojin’s body, so Jihoon moves much faster than he did on Woojin’s back. Jihoon passes gauzes under running water and lays it against Woojin’s skin. When he’s run out of cotton, he wets his the three fingers on his right hand instead, and softly presses it on a small bruise by Woojin’s collarbone.

“Yes,” Jihoon suddenly says. His eyes are looking at the plethora of bleeding marks on Woojin’s body – at everything except Woojin’s eyes that are watching him intently.

“ _Yes_ , I’m enjoying this. I _enjoy_ having to haul you up the staircase with the least amount of noise we can possibly make in the middle of the night, as the rest of my family sleep. I _like_ having the perfect ratio of baking soda, bleach, and water for an antiseptic solution memorized as if I was born to mix them altogether my entire life. I _love_ having to see you all bruised and cut and wounded and having to clean each and every one of them as if it doesn’t hurt me at all.”

Woojin extends a hand and lays it over Jihoon’s shoulder, but immediately pulls away when Jihoon winces in pain.

“How can you even fucking ask such a thing,” Jihoon asks. Woojin takes the opportunity of Jihoon watching a few of the gauze fall off his torso to carefully take Jihoon’s own shirt off.

Woojin takes note of the rip in the corner, but it wasn’t enough to warn him of the swirl of burgundy and purple surrounding a maroon gash underneath. “Fuck,” they both say at the same time. Woojin’s mouth gapes slightly at Jihoon’s audacity to even chuckle.

Woojin’s fingers are much clumsier than Jihoon’s, even if he should be used to this routine as much as Jihoon is. He has no gauze to work with, so he pulls Jihoon’s towels from the rack, and topples a couple of bottles while he’s at it. “I’m sorry,” Woojin says, and he repeats it after each dab he makes at whatever mess he can reach on Jihoon’s body. “I’m sorry, Jihoon, I’m _so_ fucking sorry.”

Jihoon remains silent as Woojin does his work on his own body, so Woojin takes it as a sign he could continue. “I’m sorry for asking such an insensitive question, I’m sorry you’re hurt, I’m sorry you _always_ get hurt, I’m sorry you have to fucking deal with somebody like me.”

Woojin takes his eyes off of the discolorations on Jihoon’s body to meet with the only color he wants himself to drown in tonight, or any other night, to be honest. Jihoon’s eyes are tired, black and blue circles surrounding them, but Woojin is still able to distinguish the chocolate brown, and he loses himself again – even if he’s been staring at these eyes ever since he can remember.

“I’m never going to get out of this, Jihoon,” Woojin tells him, and he’s grateful Jihoon manages a nod. They both don’t really understand how it has come to this – how boys after boys of all ages come strolling into their neighborhood to pick a fight with Woojin. But what they do understand is that it isn’t going to stop soon, not even after all these months of running and fighting.

“Daniel hyung and Seongwu hyung and I are never going to get out of this, okay, but we’re _trying_. Minhyun hyung is trying too,” Woojin continues. He knows Jihoon’s aware, but he says it again to remind Jihoon. “But you can get out of this, Jihoon, okay, you can, and you _have_ to.”

Woojin also knows that Jihoon’s aware of what he’s talking about now. These fights don’t include Jihoon, they never did anyway. But Woojin and Jihoon are a pair, partners in crime. It is straight up impossible for Woojin to hide anything from Jihoon, especially this, making it inevitable that these groups would end up chasing after Jihoon too.

“What are you talking about?” Jihoon asks through a light chuckle. He holds onto Woojin’s hand currently wiping away at the blood dried up by his navel. Woojin permits himself to drop the damp towel onto the tiled floor and chooses to intertwine his fingers with Jihoon’s own.

“I’m saying you and I have to stop seeing each other for a while, we should stop hanging out and being together all the time.”

“You sound like you’re breaking up with me.”

The laughter in Jihoon’s voice makes Woojin’s heart break a little more.

“I’m serious, Jihoon.”

“You’re seriously breaking up with me?”

Woojin sighs and runs his free hand over his face. “There’s _nothing_ to break up anyway.”

Jihoon pulls Woojin’s other hand from his face and locks their fingers together too. “Do you want something to break up?” He asks Woojin. They’re looking directly at each other now and Woojin finds himself lost in Jihoon’s eyes a second time this evening. “Not that you need anything else, you’re already breaking my heart just by standing there and saying all of these stupid things.”

Woojin lets his jaw drop, and Jihoon uses this chance to continue. “I’m _not_ going to stop, Woojin. I’m not going to stop following you around just to make sure you don’t have to fight alone in case those assholes decide on taking you and the hyungs one by one, okay? I’m not.”

Jihoon pulls away from Woojin’s hands to wave his own all over the place. “I _don’t_ want to get out of this no matter how fucking bruised and beaten up I get, because if I’m going to die, then I might as well die _with_ you, right?”

Woojin doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to say, so he opts to stare at Jihoon instead. He’s captivating, Woojin thinks, albeit the wrecked state he’s currently in. None of Woojin’s own bruises, cuts, or wounds are registering, and all he can recognize is the warm flush slowly creeping up his neck and the erratic beating of his heart in his chest.

“’Til death do us part,” Jihoon ends.

Jihoon’s looking at Woojin, searching deeply for any sign of rejection or acceptance in his eyes. Woojin is still at a loss, so he does the only thing his mind and body and heart and entire existence have been wanting to do all this time.

The cuts in their lips aren’t enough to make them pull apart. The bruises in their bodies don’t do anything to stop them from pressing their bodies even closer together. The pain isn’t keeping them from holding onto each other, and instead, it’s what urges them to deepen the kiss until they finally pull apart a few moments later, red and breathless – but the good kind.

“That’s fucking stupid,” Woojin says as he presses his forehead against Jihoon’s own. “But, I do, ‘til death do us part.”

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by the Beautiful MV.
> 
> My Twitter is @[park__lee](https://twitter.com/park__lee) if you guys want to see me talk about my love for the boys of 1999.


End file.
